Hi all, new member here and this is my first post. I have always loved aircraft and was interested in flight patterns from a very early age. On a flat earth model, A flight path from say New York to London makes sense, but the flight path from aircraft that travel from Chile to Australia don't. This distance seems astronomical on a flat earth map. So how is this possible?

Sorry if I haven't been abiding by the posting rules, as I said before, I'm new here.

It doesn't have to be a flight path. Any path of a longer length will bring out the curved nature of the path around a globe. Before I retired, I worked on ships that made the transit between China and the US. The shortest distance between the two ports is known as a great circle route. The airlines fly those paths as well, again because they are the shortest distance. I've made countless long trips over the earth's oceans both on airplanes and on ships. When you are burning fuel, which costs a bunch of money, you must take the shortest routes possible. Just try to plot out a long course on a flat earth map. You will quickly see that your path course and distance won't match what is actually needed to make the transit between point A and point B. Navigators know down to a 'gnat's ass' just how far it is between two ports. Additionally they plot our position, hourly, on the chart. The accumulated time and distance is also noted. If something doesn't match then it's looked into. On a route that's a regular run, it would be hard to fool anyone. Both the airlines and shipping companies use charts that were drawn using a representation of the global earth. There is no getting around the fact that they 'just work'. I've seen it for myself, first hand. All my old 'shipping buddies' would tell you the same thing.

For FE no explanation is possible, for RE no explanation is necessary.

Hi all, new member here and this is my first post. I have always loved aircraft and was interested in flight patterns from a very early age. On a flat earth model, A flight path from say New York to London makes sense, but the flight path from aircraft that travel from Chile to Australia don't. This distance seems astronomical on a flat earth map. So how is this possible?

Sorry if I haven't been abiding by the posting rules, as I said before, I'm new here.

- Bruce

The earth is not flat. It's a ball, and flying from Chile to Australia or Australia to South Africa involves very simply flying around that ball. You can track planes online easy enough.

Hi all, new member here and this is my first post. I have always loved aircraft and was interested in flight patterns from a very early age. On a flat earth model, A flight path from say New York to London makes sense, but the flight path from aircraft that travel from Chile to Australia don't. This distance seems astronomical on a flat earth map. So how is this possible?

Sorry if I haven't been abiding by the posting rules, as I said before, I'm new here.

1-3. This is the official Flat Earth Wiki map. If it is so inaccurate that even the positions of the continents are uncertain, why post it at all? Isn't this as inaccurate as posting a rotating globe on the site?4. Which flights don't exist? Sydney to Buenos Aires in particular, or no flights exist at all? Because if Argentina and Australia are actually close, why fake a flight at all?5. Point 5 kind of contradicts point 4. You are saying there are flights, but they are assisted by jet streams. But jet streams go in one direction - shouldn't the flight in the opposite direction be twice as slow?

You are not the first to ask such questions and you are not the last. How can the distances/flight times/travel times/shipping times/cartography on the wiki map be possible when they don't match the distances/flight times/travel times/shipping times/modern cartography.

This has been discussed so many times. I was also VERY curious about it. I got all the responses from a flight time superthread. (Pick any one of your rebuttals from the list below) Here's a link:

-GPS systems are based on a round earth therefore will give measurements/distances which support a round earth.-Aircraft are using instruments which assume round earth coordinates which will support a round earth.-There is no flat earth map. -The difference in flight time is based off of flight speed which has yet to be proven.-The airplane speed and range is based off round systems therefore will give speeds and ranges which support a round earthhttps://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6633.msg122359#msg122359

-there are almost an infinite number of continental configurations (If a flight disproves flat earth continental configuration 23985729387592873 you then need to test continental configuration 23985729387592874).-Groundspeed measurement instruments use a round earth coordinate system therefore will give results which support a round earthhttps://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6633.msg122411#msg122411

Of course Mark Sargent gives and explanation of flight paths for the flat earth and the very accepted map.

Unfortunately for Mark Sargent all he proves here is that he's terrible at searching for non-stop flights and the "very accepted map" he uses, ironically, is an AE globe projection. Meaning it is derived from a globe.

Seargant does say that there are a few claimed direct nonstops in the video.

He does, in a way, around the 6:00 mark. He states that you may find one. But then basically launches into the "GPS is a part of the conspiracy, maps are wrong, pilots are too afraid to bring it up, everyone is doing it wrong" thing, peppered with fuel/speed/distance nonsense. Like airlines and their crew don't calculate down to the gallon/mph/mile. If they didn't there would be planes dropping out of the sky by the thousands.

The travel industry only appears to consider stops with passenger exchanges as stops. If bus stopped for fuel on a 29 stop route, would the route be advertised to customers as 29 stops or 30 stops?

Sure, it’s called weather. From the articles you referenced:

"Dozens of Continental Airlines flights to the East Coast from Europe have been forced to make unexpected stops in Canada and elsewhere to take on fuel after running into unusually strong headwinds over the Atlantic Ocean.”

“Be aware that so-called nonstop flights now stop for fuel. Flights to the East Coast from Europe are being forced to make dozens of totally unexpected stops in Canada and elsewhere to take on fuel after running into unusually strong head winds over the Atlantic Ocean."

But tons of non-stop flights exist that are not diverted due to weather. I fail to see your point. Just have a look at historical flight data. It's not hard.

Can you provide a source on the flight data that doesn't come from NASA?

See the following video at 15:07:

Maybe, watched the vid, haven't looked into it. Give me a bit. In the mean time, can you provide a source that all worldwide flight data flows through NASA? But, to put a fine point on it, in the short run, your argument is that all flight travel data, worldwide, flows through NASA?

Seargant does say that there are a few claimed direct nonstops in the video.

So what is the issue then? After I wrote the above post I looked at the comments on Sargent’s video and it was full of people saying they’d personally flown the route I found and other similar ones.Of course those comments were often followed by FE people calling them liars but that’s a lazy argument. You can “prove” anything if you ignore or call lies anything which shows you to be wrong.

Planes make unscheduled stops for fuel on supposed "nonstop" flight all of the time.

I think the key word there is "unscheduled". The first article says that one airline had to do it twice in January and another airline only did it once all year. So it's not something which happens often. It also explains why they sometimes have to do that.

The second article says that "dozens" of flights had to make stops - it doesn't say what percentage that is - but it also explains why and it's clear that this is the exception rather than the rule. You have to subscribe to read the whole thing.The third article is not accessible from the UK for some legal reason.

I have never been on a non-stop flight which has stopped. Clearly it happens sometimes but the idea that they "do what they like" is ludicrous. The airline industry is highly competitive, any airline that "did what they liked" would quickly go out of business as people would use alternatives.

I'm not clear how you think any of this helps FE theory. Are you trying to cast doubt on the whole airline industry? Are they all "in on it" too?

I thought of starting an FE investigation on southern flight paths across the ocean, but they are kind of dull, because they fly across the ocean and nothing much to see. But FYI here are three of them now

None of these flights tend to make unscheduled stops, o/a of the whole flight (except ANZ30) is across the ocean. I calculate LAN800 should be flying at a speed of around 2,300km/h, based on the AE projection. According to the website (which may be lying) speed is actually around 900 km/h.

The idea that the airlines can 'do anything they want' is not completely true. Yes, they can decide to offer a direct flight between any two airports they want, but are then faced with lots of federal/international regulations regarding that flight. Additionally the airline has to believe that the seats in the plane would be filled, otherwise why offer a flight if will be a money looser? Surprise, an airline is a company and has to receive more revenue from ticket sales than they pay in expenses, on the average, or they can't stay in business. Any direct flight has to be flown by a plane that has sufficient range with ample reserve capacity at the end of the flight. There are a lot of international regulations regarding the maximum distance a aircraft can be from an emergency field during the flight. This distance depends a lot on the type of aircraft being flown (two engine or four).

In my personal experience, I would say that most non-stop long haul flights are conducted without stopping. I've been on quite a few over the years and can only remember 1 where a stop was necessary. It was a direct flight from Chicago to Hong Kong. The weather had been bad the whole route and there was a potential weather problem in Hong Kong as well. We landed at Beijing, China and took on some fuel and waited on the ramp for about 2 hours until the situation got better. It was a good thing too, because we had to be in a holding pattern for about 30 minutes at Hong Kong because the previous delays had traffic backed up.

I have held a commercial pilot's license myself for a lot of years. Any flight I planned always had to have enough fuel for the entire route as well as sufficient reserve for unexpected circumstances. If your projected reserve is used up along the way due to weather or weather related diversions, then it's time to land somewhere and get more fuel and/or wait on the ground until things in the air become more favorable for you to continue.

What would be the potential consequences of not doing that? You could die, along with all your passengers. It's better be safe than sorry. I didn't blame the pilot for a second on my Chicago to Hong Kong flight. I wanted to arrive safely.

For FE no explanation is possible, for RE no explanation is necessary.

Looks as though LAN800 got in successfully and on time yesterday (12 Jan). It's now 3 hours into today's flight from Auckland. I will report back tomorrow.

[EDIT]Looking also at LA804 Melbourne Santiago. On the flight track website the flight path looks weirdly curved. However the Google Earth shows it as straight. It’s almost as if the earth were a globe.